New Year's Ruminations

Sprinkled With More Than A Pinch Of Gratitude

More than a sane amount of this recreational activity has been occurring around here!

Our family, like so many other families, experienced a lot of loss this past year. Three members of our family departed this existence, one right after another, and by May we were all very weary of sudden bereavement and funerals.

Introspection is something that I do a lot of most of the time, but this last year brought about a lot of new perspective. Our time is so incredibly valuable, and I tend to let a lot of mine be allocated to overly needy, selfish people. This was a year of learning to be assertive, embracing the idea that it's okay to say no, especially to family, and that I can't care for others if I neglect taking care of myself.

Yesterday, I stayed far from my keyboard. The highlight of my day was delivering a cake to an older friend who means a lot to us. He is the great creator of the Rebar tomato cages, deliverer of the sacred greenhouse weed block flooring, and presenter of the huge burl of black walnut wood that is going to become some form of table. Watching him hack a huge chunk out of the cake and eating it with his bare hands like some sort of confection-conquering medieval warrior was one of the highlights of my day. That, and pretending to be witches and wizards at midnight with roman candles. Okay, lighting and watching this gigantic pyrotechnical marvel that I bought last summer was up there on the day-enjoyment list too. I mean, anything with the title: The Doomsday Box, has to be totally worth obtaining and observing. During all of this mirth, I was thinking about ways I could capture the many joys of the scenes that I was experiencing and share them. It appears that I am hooked.

This cake was hacked into pieces like a Monty Python Character

I have been writing stories for as long as I have been capable of grasping a utensil, and my gratitude towards the Steemit community is about as big as the hole that is currently in my son's left sock. Gigantic! The welcoming atmosphere that I have experienced here has been so very appreciated, and I am looking forward to spending another year crafting and posting all manner of @generikat-tinged writing on this platform. Thank you all for the warm welcome!

Also, a very special thank you to @jacobtothe for introducing me to Steemit. His blog is full of all manner of interesting posts, totally worth a look and a follow!

And as a closing anecdote, I had to work on New Year's Eve. Our library tends to be a bit ghost town like on days preceding holidays, but I still had plenty to do, and as I pulled the holds for the day, I experienced this moment of levity.

First, I plucked this book out of the Young Adult section:

Next, I did a double take at the author of this tale:

This was the first image that popped into my brain:

Link
Many apologies Steemit;o)

All photos, with the exception of the former boss of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, were taken by the author, on my iPhone.

Written with StackEdit.